Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat/Archives/2017-04

Uneditable article

I tried to edit article Polska Wikipedia na DVD (z Helionem)/en, to fix its poor English, but any change in the article, even an addition of a single space, results in firing an Antispam alert. Please confirm my last version of the article, or fix the Antispam extension. Markotek (talk) 20:20, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

That filter should probably be redesigned but you can avoid it by making some more edits elsewhere. Ruslik (talk) 08:53, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean, I should edit another article in this wiki instead of this one? Is it going to make this article editable for me? I just want to fix a few problems, like this seven-years-old vandalism... Markotek (talk)

You don't need to do it now. You just made a few edits on this page, so the filter shouldn't avoid your edits anymore. Matiia (talk) 19:55, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I still don't understand how the filter works, but, indeed, I was able to edit the article now. Markotek (talk) 20:46, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Unable to Submit Rapid Grant Request

Hello! I have been trying to use my username "Medhavigandhi" to submit a rapid grant proposal for an upcoming series of Art and Feminism Editathons. Each time I edit the meta-page for the template and hit Publish, I am faced with this message :

"Warning! — Your edit has been automatically identified as being spam or advertising. Please note that such edits are not allowed on any Wikimedia project. Users that engage in such behaviour will have their editing privileges removed. If you believe that the edit you wanted to make was constructive, we sincerely apologize. You may click the Submit button again to confirm it. A brief description of the rule which your action matched is: «Antispam». Feel free to report false positives to our administrators' noticeboard." — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Medhavigandhi (talk)

It seems like this now works (cf. [1]). --MF-W 18:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Full protection for User talk:GALAXYA8

His socks have created two unlock requests. MechQuester (talk) 15:52, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think full protection is warranted at this time. I've locked the most recent sock, though. – Ajraddatz (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Rapid grand proposal flagged as spam

Hello! I'm trying to submit a grant proposal for an edit-a-thon but it's being flagged as spam. Could someone help me out? Louize5 (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Created - edit as you see fit! You might still trigger the filter - make an edit on your userpage first, then you won't have any more issues. Regards, – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Request to mark article for translation

There have been some new edits to the Wikimedia Uruguay page on Meta in the last months. Could some administrator mark the changes for translation, so I can translate the new version to other languages? Thank you very much. --Pepe piton (talk) 20:00, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. Matiia (talk) 19:46, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Spam filter

I'm trying to summit a request here. But the anti-spam filter won't let me do it. Help please? --Leonfd1992 (talk) 23:34, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Nothing to do here. The user was able to create the page. Matiia (talk) 19:57, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protection request on Wikimedia News

• Wikimedia News (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This need semi-protection due to reverts lately. --George Ho (talk) 08:41, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. --Steinsplitter (talk) 10:47, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

remove protection

Hi, please remove protection from Tech/Server switch 2017. TYVM! Elitre (WMF) (talk) 14:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems like the protection you set already expired. Stryn (talk) 15:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Movepage-moved

MediaWiki:Movepage-moved should be modified in order to hide the delete link for users who can't delete pages. XXN (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. --Vogone (talk) 09:47, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. XXN (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: XXN (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Request to Language committee

Good afternoon. Can someone from the Language committee confirm the receipt/acceptance of this request? Thanks! --LIVE NIEUWS (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Language committee will see it in the other places you've posted. If they do not respond soon I will poke. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:00, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Report concerning Sänger

• Sänger (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log • GUC • CA) — Reasons: Defamatory statements, repeated two times to the detriment of User:Der Wolf im Wald. Precisely, this report is about the statement that said Wikipedian is a "habgieriger Erpresserbriefschreiber" and used a "widerwärtiges Erpresserschreiben" (rough translations: "greedy writer of extortive letters" and "despicable extortive letter" , it is about some legal proceedings including some adhortatory letters by the latter to a third party). Maby some steward could advise if this even warrant a global block, at least for a finite duration? Grand-Duc (talk) 18:42, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

  The concerned account sent a as-aggressive-as-possible and stuffed with maximum legalese threatening cease-or-desist-letter with over 1000$ claim to the owner of a free-knowledge, CC-licensed, website owner, who had a fully licensed picture on his site, just overlooked a automagically created back-page, that the account especially looked for for financial exploitation. It's his business model, sending such letters, in the hope that fear will make some of the recipients just pay. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:03, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it's not up to you to make a legal judgement, and declaring something being an "extortion" is such a statement, which is only to be made by a court in conclusion of a case. / New diff, same thing. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 20:08, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

If the user in question is threatening people who are using content hosted her in good faith I have a problem with that. One needs to have excellent justification to send a demand for money. One IMO must have requested proper attribution first and been denied and only than. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:25, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

The cease-and-desist-letter-fans only talk about legalese, they are completely immune to moral thinking and doing just what's right. They want to maximum-criminalize all those users of our content, who make negligible mistakes, and some even want to make money out of this. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:52, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

To answer the initial question: Global blocks for user accounts do not exist. There's merely the possibility to globally lock accounts which is certainly not being done for finite durations. --Vogone (talk) 21:59, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

@Vogone: Well, your statement actually contradicts the first sentence of Global blocks: "Global blocks are ways to prevent an account or IP address from editing all Wikimedia wikis, for a time or indefinitely." The workaround for the lack of suited tool is indeed a lock, as far as I understood the following explanations. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:08, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

@Grand-Duc: Global blocks quite clearly says, at the top This page is currently a draft. so I wouldn't start arguing based on the information in a draft page. This all seems terribly vindictive, don't you have productive editing to engage in elsewhere in any case ? Nick (talk) 23:11, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Say that to the guy engaged in defamatory hounding of another Wikipedian. I'm quite pissed of about the eternal equalization of "people who are engaged in defending their intellectual property" = "criminals who eagerly await the occasion to wring out some money out of innocent media users". On the other hand, asking for assistance to enforce a civilisated tone in arguments and discussion is productive, isn't it? Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 23:19, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't see anybody suggesting those of us who defend our intellectual property rights are being equated with criminals who eagerly await the occasion to wring out some money out of innocent media users. I see someone complaining that one user is sending out letters asking for significant sums of money when minor errors of attribution (which appear to be good faith, accidental omissions, rather than wilful 'theft' of the image) have occurred. I've had plenty of my images re-used without attribution, including in print, and I've never considered sending out a letter demanding $1000, despite being in the same legal position as Der Wolf im Wald, I find myself largely agreeing with Sänger, I think demanding any sum of money when a good faith failure to correctly attribute is discovered is abhorrent, it flies in the face of our mission here, it actively deters people from re-using what we contribute, and that reduces the amount of 'ShareAlike' licensed content downstream which is completely contrary to our mission here. And as I say, wanting Sänger blocked globally is coming across as unduly vindictive, I'm afraid. Nick (talk) 23:27, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually, Sänger makes this equation again and again. Well, yes, Der Wolf im Wald (DWiW for short) has made an error in judgement in a case of intellectual property, and he clarified the matter with his opposite. But since several months, the one who has been reported here is a bad hound of DWiW, jumping on the smallest occasion to discriminate him. First, it was on the talk page of a RfC, then on the DE-WP signpost talk page, not to forget a second RfC, several pages for administration (vandal report page and the like), always on DE-WP and always about the behavior of DWiW (and I surely miss some instances). Well, our German Wikimedia chapter is currently trying to put together some solutions to this and has asked for comments and ideas, and guess who we see again engaged in defamatory acts against DWiW? The diffs above show it. Yes, DWiW's acts weren't sound and weren't morally well thought. But using these errors to make the assertion that someone is an extortionist is way too much, it's going in the realms of justiciable acts: someone who is not judged as such by a legal court is not to be termed "extortionist". Ah, and Sänger likes the fake news too, that photographers routinely get a four-digit amount of money out of any license infringer. That's simply wrong, German courts usually award between 100 and 500 Euros for damages and retroactively owed license fees (and of course the expenses of the claimant and the costs of the proceeding are imputed to the defendant, given that he lost). Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 00:20, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Of course he would never have got this money in a court, but that was never his intention. He just wanted to extort money by creation of a climate of fear, he doesn't want to go to court, that#s why he backed down after the shit had hit the fan. And a quite loud and good organized group of fan-boys'n'girls stands fast with him and tries to ruin every meaningful MB (RfC) about this issues on deWP. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Not done Global or other local issues are not meta's issues.

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Multiple proposals for new projects

There are so many proposed projects, including a few older ones, like WikiCook, Wikifoodia and WikiGames (not to be confused with Wikigames (2). Some or a few proposals need closure as "rejected" proposals. --George Ho (talk) 05:13, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

not a task for meta admins ... Any users in good standing may close or merge any proposal ... this is a broader community task.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

IP harassment

Can we get a local block on 124.106.133.214 (talk · contribs) who thinks it's cute to copy my enwiki page over here so it propagates to other projects where I don't have a formal userpage? I blocked them for harassing other editors on enwiki. A passing steward would be helpful too for a global block since they're pulling the same trick elsewhere - the IP seems stable. Protection for my userpage wouldn't hurt either. Acroterion (talk) 16:20, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Both a local and a global block is now in place. -- Tegel _(Talk) 16:26, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Acroterion (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Request for Mass message sender right

I require this facility predominantly for tow purposes. The first one is that I am the lead coordinator of Wiki Loves Uniformed services (India), a WMF funded project. So there will be the need to send messages across wikis to inform the participants and the organising team about different updates. Secondly, we're hoping to form an officially affiliated user group in our college/area, named VIVA-VVIT Wikimedia User Group. As I'll be serving as its founding President, the right will help us to keep the members abreast of the updates and event news. I am well aware of the policies of mass messaging on wiki as I have been exercising this right on en Wiki for the past nine months. --Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk — mail) 07:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Done temporary for one year, if you still need the tool after one year you can ask here again for renewal. Please use it with care. --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:05, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

False positive report

Moved to Stewards' noticeboard, as it has to be handled by Stewards. Matiia (talk) 19:28, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by:  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Import c:Template:Verified account

Hello,

Could an admin, an importer or a trans-wiki importer import the aforementioned template here ? This would be useful for OTRS.

If there is already such a template, could you simply tell me which one it is ? I didn't find it.

Best regards,

--AntonierCH^(d) 11:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Do we require account verification on meta? --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd say we don't. No valid use case (if there is any at all) for verified accounts applies to meta. --Krd 11:49, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

There is one use case actually, the meta user page is used on other wiki if there is not a local one. Example with User:Louvain Coopération who uses the global userpage for FR wiki and Commons. --AntonierCH^(d) 14:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I would like to add that if this template is not imported, it implies that 1) the agent has to create local pages on all involved wikis (here only FR + Commons) and 2) the user can't use the global user page functionality entirely. Let's work efficiently and UX oriented :-) --AntonierCH^(d) 14:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Is there any account verification policy on Commons and/or on frwiki? --Krd 14:41, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes for sure, on FR wiki and probably yes for Commons since there is the template and it is used... However, none is written in OTRS wiki and maybe it would be great to have a common cross-wiki policy. --AntonierCH^(d) 14:52, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

See en:WP:REALNAME, which is also policy at simplewiki. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:29, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that a global policy could be useful, and I'd say the policy and the corresponding guidelines for OTRS agents should be established before facts are made by using a new template. I'd appreciate if anybody could take care of building such global policy. --Krd 15:56, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Krd: Sure, but I am currently in Cuba and know how much time consuming creating a global policy can be (weeks or months !), there is no way I am working on this in the next weeks, so I solved the problem by adding a simple line on the meta user page of the user. --AntonierCH^(d) 09:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes for sure, on Wikimedia Commons and de facto on English Wikipedia (template), German Wikipedia (project page), German Wikipedia (template), Finnish Wikipedia (template), and Persian Wikipedia (template).   — Jeff G. ツ 12:50, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
needs more thinking I imported it, then I deleted it. It needs other templates, and module(s) that are not on wiki. I have nothing against the idea, and IMNSHO if any wiki needs it and it is OTRS managed and for global userpages, then we should allow the process to occur. We do not have to participate or require it.  — billinghurst sDrewth 05:50, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I have unarchived this discussion as there is a request from AntonierCH to undelete the template. I would prefer that it is back in front of the community. To progress this can we agree that this process is reflecting a process at a local wiki undertaken through the OTRS system. Accordingly—I am not seeing that this is a meta policy issue, though I am seeing that there is a clear need for a uniform, agreed practice with safeguards for the wikis. If we require the template, what is needed beyond this single template are clear statements on:

1. the purpose of the template, clear overarching statement here
2. the interrelationship to the process/labelling at meta and similar labelling at other wikis
3. how templates are to be used; who can add them and the conditions of that addition
4. how we are going to manage abuse, or the potential for abuse (suggest if it exists that its addition is limited by abuse filter)
5. minimum standards of information to be recorded, and if wikis have higher standards that any template is able to cater for this graduation.

Minimum that I see are 1) user 2) ticket-id, 3) agent, 4) wiki of verification. At the moment, commons has "ticket ID*, user*, realname, organisation, agent" where the * is mandated and the wiki is implicit; I would suggest that we wish for the agent to be mandatory.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:12, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Without these covered, we have an open abuseable system.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:12, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

@AntonierCH: I suggest that this gets raised at the OTRS forums, especially the OTRS wiki for discussion.  — billinghurst sDrewth 07:58, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: —MarcoAurelio (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2018 (UTC)